Current Affairs The Labour Party

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Bruce Wayne said:
Quite possibly, I'm not here to claim that the process was managed as well as it might have been, merely to say that we're blaming those who stood up and lent money when no other government in the world was willing to do so, despite many perhaps being ideologically aligned with Greece. There appeared no solidarity with their plight and no offer of financial help so that they could carry on as they were.

Now, given that no one else came forward to help, what would things have been like had Germany not done so?
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There was plenty of solidarity with their plight, its just countries probably didn't want to give them money just so the likes of the Germans would get it.

I think it would have been healthier, at least in the long term of Europe point of view, if they'd just defaulted - which would have forced them to deal with the problems of their government honestly and appropriately punished the banks and politicians who saw nothing wrong with loaning them the money the first time.
 
tsubaki said:
We aren't talking about advances in technology with driverless cars though Bruce, we are talking about firms who think they can undercut other firms by cutting staff costs and by other legislative or tax changes so their product appears better.
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I didn't think we'd specified at all tbh, as @Number_25 was talking about people who will undoubtedly lose out from the recession that is likely to happen in the next few years (whether Brexit related or not). You basically have three options don't you? Try and stop change from happening, try and help people adapt to the change, or try and buffer the impact of the change.

I'm not sure #1 is ever wise (or possible), and the government have been rubbish at doing #2 for generations, which doesn't really leave anywhere to go, does it?
 
Bruce Wayne said:
Sure - it's a lot of people. Now you could speculate as to when it will happen, but the amount of money being thrown into R&D in the area suggests it will happen eventually, and it's therefore sensible to begin building up some kind of insurance policy. Except I don't really see any such effort being made, which seems incredibly risky to me.
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I know you have done tons of work on this stuff, but personally, the leap from a driver less car navigating a test track well, to a HGV driving itself is miles and miles away.

As for drones replacing delivery drivers, the same. The technology is there, but the practicalities are there also.

That said, I 100% agree that not enough is done for those facing life changes cos a factory or foundry closes mind, from all angles. Folk choose to lob brickbats instead. Its easier to do.
 
tsubaki said:
There was plenty of solidarity with their plight, its just countries probably didn't want to give them money just so the likes of the Germans would get it.

I think it would have been healthier, at least in the long term of Europe point of view, if they'd just defaulted - which would have forced them to deal with the problems of their government honestly and appropriately punished the banks and politicians who saw nothing wrong with loaning them the money the first time.
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Why would the money have gone to the Germans? I mean if China (for example) had offered to give them €150bn instead of Germany/the EU, then surely they could have given them a blank cheque and said stimulus your way out of it matey and tell those nasty Germans to bog off? In such a scenario, what could the EU have done? I suspect the reality is that countries didn't step forward with their cheque book because they weren't at all confident of getting their money back.
 
roydo said:
I know you have done tons of work on this stuff, but personally, the leap from a driver less car navigating a test track well, to a HGV driving itself is miles and miles away.

As for drones replacing delivery drivers, the same. The technology is there, but the practicalities are there also.

That said, I 100% agree that not enough is done for those facing life changes cos a factory or foundry closes mind, from all angles. Folk choose to lob brickbats instead. Its easier to do.
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Oh for sure, I wouldn't like to pretend that they will be on our streets any time soon, but equally I would be amazed if they weren't on our streets at some point in the not too distant future. It's just an example really, as the threat is quite so blatant, but this could equally apply in all manner of other areas, and the response is just as lacklustre. I'm sure there's a well explained cognitive bias that explains why we fail to really do anything until the poop has hit the fan, but you'd think society would be rather better at it collectively than perhaps people are individually.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
I'm sure there's a well explained cognitive bias that explains why we fail to really do anything until the poop has hit the fan, but you'd think society would be rather better at it collectively than perhaps people are individually.
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We are so off topic, but hey, no one will notice.

I think as society/workplace/technology continually develops, the workforce does as well. It has to.

And its different now. Like, if a shipyard closed in the 70's, then the immediate area now has 000's of well skilled ship builders to deal with.

These days, if a call centre closes, then the skills there are transferable to any office on the planet. Same with all the high street woes recently. Same in my job. Would be the same if Facebook went west. Or Amazon.

Society will always need the vocational trades, so pretty much bullet proof there. In fact, I am struggling to think of a UK industry, that if it was obliterated, the skills of their workforce would struggle to adapt to a different industry.

edit. If all the car manufacturers chipped off to France, that might be a tough one mind.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
Why would the money have gone to the Germans? I mean if China (for example) had offered to give them €150bn instead of Germany/the EU, then surely they could have given them a blank cheque and said stimulus your way out of it matey and tell those nasty Germans to bog off? In such a scenario, what could the EU have done? I suspect the reality is that countries didn't step forward with their cheque book because they weren't at all confident of getting their money back.
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They were in debt (or rather of concern to the EU) because of previous debts, if they used their new loans for stimulus and still defaulted on their previous debts then yes the countries concerned would have every right to not be confident of getting their money back.
 
tsubaki said:
They were in debt (or rather of concern to the EU) because of previous debts, if they used their new loans for stimulus and still defaulted on their previous debts then yes the countries concerned would have every right to not be confident of getting their money back.
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Greece cooked their books to join the Euro. Which the ECB knew. That gave them a credit rating way higher than their actual status would warrant. They then ran up massive debts, and the cat came calling.

The bone headed way the Euro was launched is as much to blame as anything.
 
roydo said:
Greece cooked their books to join the Euro. Which the ECB knew. That gave them a credit rating way higher than their actual status would warrant. They then ran up massive debts, and the cat came calling.
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They did, though that was the fashion at the time.
 
Thought this was the Labour Party thread?

It's typical that we finally get a Socialist leader of the Labour Party and he's going to mess it up because of some misguided belief that Brexit is what's best for us. There are plenty of things the state can do whilst still in the EU. If he waits for us to recover from Brexit and be in a strong enough position for state ownership he'll be dead!
 
Big two weeks for the Labour Party.

It's likely that we're going to defeat the government on the PM's deal. I can see a VoNC being put forward, and in the likely event that we lose that - then I can't see how any other options (other than the second referendum) are feasible?

Even then, what if we fail with that? Where does that leave us?
 
Number_25 said:
Big two weeks for the Labour Party.

It's likely that we're going to defeat the government on the PM's deal. I can see a VoNC being put forward, and in the likely event that we lose that - then I can't see how any other options (other than the second referendum) are feasible?

Even then, what if we fail with that? Where does that leave us?
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Who are the Labour Party. At the moment they are about as relevant as the SNP. The tories will defeat the PM’s deal, Labour just oppose everything anyway without even bothering to read what they are opposing.....
 
peteblue said:
Who are the Labour Party. At the moment they are about as relevant as the SNP. The tories will defeat the PM’s deal, Labour just oppose everything anyway without even bothering to read what they are opposing.....
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Folly. ^

Much of the Brexit negotiations will and can only be discussed between the government of the UK of the day and EU. All the oppositions see is the outcome.
 
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